Lupin, a bad guy?

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 96543

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> 
wrote:
> I'm not saying he {Lupin} should be judged by his teenaged 
actions, if 
> he's changed since then. Unfortunately, he says himself that he 
> hasn't.  He tells us, in PoA, that he made up all kinds of stories 
> so that his friends wouldn't guess what he was.  As an adult he 
> made up  a story that Sirius was getting into the castle using 
> Dark Magic he'd learned from Voldemort, and used it to 
> persuade himself that he didn't need to tell Dumbledore about 
> the unguarded secret passage into Hogsmeade or that Sirius 
> was an Animagus.  
<snipping>
> More seriously, Lupin was and is a coward, though not in the 
> conventional sense. He's not afraid to endure pain or risk his 
life. 
> But he is afraid  that Dumbledore wlll abandon him. From what  
> he says, he knew he was risking Harry's life and everybody 
> else's so that Dumbledore wouldn't find out what a naughty boy 
> he'd been. I have a hard time seeing that as kind or 
> compassionate.

Jen: It strikes me that we have a couple different moral 
philosophies at work in the series. Dumbledore appears to most often 
employ the philosophy that certain actions are inherently 
right/wrong, good/evil and you must decide based on your moral duty 
without regard for consequences. Therefore, Dumbledore saves Harry 
by leaving him at the Dursleys without regard for other factors; he 
avoids Harry during OOTP because he doesn't want to compromise the 
Order; he assumes Snape will be able to teach Harry Occlumency 
because that's his duty; DD believes his obligation is to the 
community good (entire WW) over the individual good (Harry), even as 
he struggles with this issue.

Lupin appears to employ (poorly at times) a philosophy with a focus 
on consequences in evaluating a moral/ethical dilemma for self or 
the community. With Lupin's decision to withold information about 
Sirius from DD, his reasoning is, "What if he is innocent? What if I 
lose my job? What if I rock the boat and Sirius isn't after Harry--
would he ever forgive me? Maybe he's using Dark Magic to get in the 
castle."  Lupin is thinking through the possible consequences, but 
his downfall is the way he prioritizes them in the end--self first, 
friend second, Harry & community safety third. If safety is ever an 
issue for self or others, it always ranks before self-determination.

At the core, Lupin does wrestle with ambiguous moral decisions. He 
has made some very poor choices at times, but the fact that he 
evaluates his decisions is a sign of moral behavior. Someone like LV 
says: "Kill the spare", with no hesitation or evaluation. Lupin 
appears to agonize, lie, re-evaluate, etc.

Lying, in & of itself, is typically an external response to internal 
shame for what you perceive others will see as a wrong 
characteristic or decision. You would expect someone like Lupin, who 
perceives he has more to hide than the average person, might 
struggle with lying or omitting facts more than the average person. 
The question becomes, how much is too much? 

Self-preservation is OK if you aren't putting others at risk; most 
of us take into account how certain actions will affect us 
personally when evaluating a moral dilemma. Also, I believe most 
people employ a mix of moral philosophies, perceiving certain things 
to be "right" regardless of the circumstances or consequences 
(murder is wrong) and certain things to be more morally ambiguous 
(Lying is wrong, but if it protects someone from harm it may be OK).

Pippin:
> IMO, in the Potterverse, cowardice is as  big a red flag as 
> torturing kittens. Like it or not, we are in Inkling territory: 
pagan 
> Heldenmut (the sort of courage that heroes have in the face of 
> desperate odds ) and Christian charity are not only compatible, 
> they are one and the same. JKR calls it heart. What it takes to 
> defeat evil, Dumbledore tells us, is the courage to fight a losing 
> battle. No matter how kind and compassionate you can be,  if 
> you aren't prepared to be kind and compassionate even when it 
> might cost you everything, the Dark Side wins.

Jen: This is where ESE!Lupin breaks down for me, when only his final 
actions are part of the evaluation and not the process he takes to 
get there. Lupin lives in that big gray area of moral ambiguity, 
populated on all sides by the average person. Very few of us are 
Dumbledores or LV's. Most of us are on a continuum in the middle, in 
the muck of sticky decisions. Cowardice is a long way from torturing 
kittens in the scheme of moral decision-making.